Movement control: how our brain responds to unexpected situations

Scientists have demonstrated that the motor cortex is necessary for the execution of corrective movements in response to unexpected changes of sensory input but not when the same movements are executed spontaneously. Signatures of differential neuronal usage in the cortex accompany these two phenomena. The study by researchers from the University of Basel’s Biozentrum and the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) has recently been published in ‘Neuron’.